Why do women have affairs with men with young children

[Thegreenpotter]

As the title says. Why?

Do they have no concept of the toll that having young children can take on a relationship?

How can they feel ok playing a part in breaking up a family?

This is not to suggest the blame lies with the other women, far from. Just more a curiosity as to why and how they can do so from a moral perspective.

Good question, I suppose. But I am always wary of the suggestion of the femme fatale leading the poor innocent family man into her evil web. It's the second least believable woman-trope. The first least believable is the crazy ex.

Why are you putting the blame on the woman?

The guilty party is always the person who cheats on their partners/decides to put their family at risk.

The person they are cheating with owes you nothing/has not made a commitment to you...that might sound cold but that is the reality.

It's unbelievable to me that women find men that cheat attractive 😵‍💫 imagine meeting a man and him showing you straight up that he's disloyal, a cheat, a liar etc and twisting it to think "oh I must be so amazing I've made this man risk his family" 🫢 no, he's just a shitbag and he thinks you're one too. Some prize 😂

Exactly.

Men shit on their families, people hand wring about women.

When a man shits on his family, nobody asks why. We know why, even though we don't like it. Because he enjoyed the sex/attention. A woman has an affair with a MM, even if she's not committed to anyone, and suddenly it's a huge mystery and she can't have any reason for it, because shit, women don't enjoy sex and attention, do they? And even if his family means nothing to him, it should still matter overwhelmingly to her, right? She's more responsible for his commitments than he is?

It's fucking misogynistic bullshit and I am so, so sick of seeing it vomited up on here all the time. If you won't reframe your thinking for the sake of sexism, double standards and woman-blaming, reframe it because you are enabling male infidelity. Because if you did ask the right question - why men shit on their families - you'd realise that it is in huge part because they don't get blamed if they do. No, the question is all about how the woman could do it, as if she's obliged to care more about you and your kids than the sexual incontinent you married. And who is now laughing while you go after someone else.

And what about women who take back cheats?

I have a friend who had a short affair with a man with a young child. She was super attracted to him as a family man because she longed for children at that time. He seemed to want a nice relaxed adult time away from his poor bloody wife and the baby. All a bit depressing frankly. I didn't see my friend much at that time though I'm no angel myself.

They are two differences questions. Neither is wrong. What’s wrong with discussing women’s motivations in this scenario? Questioning the motives of one party doesn’t make the other blameless.

Im so sorry 😢. I hope you and your children are in a better place now.💐

@DrSbaitso I think the same tbh! Once someone has shown themselves to be so void of decency, I'm not sure how anyone wants them! All the stuff I see on here about the 'pick me' dance and trying to reclaim your 'partner' appears quite pathetic. I suppose it's more nuanced though in a long term relationship if you are trying to keep a family unit together and other factors are at play.

I guess because it's easy and they can be sure those men are never going to get too clingy. It's just sex with someone they find attractive and who is making himself available. He is married and has young kids, so some other woman has already done the due diligence and checked he's not a "serial killer". Basically he comes with good references.

CLARIFICATION: this is just my theory. No real experience in this matter

Oh FFS, I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of the question always being this and not ‘ why do men with young children cheat? Do they not realise the toll it will take on their families?’

Why are woman the ones always subject to this moral and character scrutiny and never the men?

'Why do men with young children have affairs?' Would be a better question.

Because these threads always ask it if the woman and not the man. Because doing this really clearly reveals you hold the woman to higher standard and blame or you wouldn’t have framed the question around them in the first place.

What’s wrong with discussing women’s motivations in this scenario?

Because it's the only one that gets questioned. And it's not even asked when she cheats on her own husband. It's only asked when a MM shits on his own family, and suddenly everyone wants to know what the fuck she was thinking.

It absolutely unbalances the blame, even though everyone ties themselves into pretzels pretending they're not doing that. "I only ever question the motive of one party, but I'm totally blaming both of them! Oh yes! And even though it was the other one who actually did the cheating. I'm leaving him completely out of the question and conversation but I'm not letting him off the hook, oh no!"

A thousand times this.

Excellent post.

Women get blamed for everything. And the worst offenders at this: other women. Until women start to put the blame where it belongs - with the man who made them the promises in the first place, rather than the woman who was more than likely lied to - then things won't change.

It's like the old days when women were treated dreadfully for getting pregnant when unmarried. Nothing was ever said about the men that impregnated them. The same double standards still apply. It's really depressing.

I did.

I was single. He wasn't. Both 40s. I had teens. My 18 year marriage had ended the year before. I didn't want a relationship, but I wanted some decent sex in my life. He was upfront about the wife of 23 years and his young child when we met online on a hook up site. I found him very attractive physically and mentally. When we met up, the connection and the sex was even better than expected. We saw each other sporadically for about a year. Had a fabulous time.

My reason is he was making the choice to cheat, not me.

Sex. Come on op. Don’t be so naive

The woman I knew of who did this with at least 2 men felt that she was somehow the winner because the married man had chosen her. She was somehow in competition with the wife and she had won! Even though the first man didn't really leave his wife for her, she felt that she was better than the wife.

Again it was a younger woman with older man scenario, probably fed a whole load of lies, she hadn't had children so had no awareness of what it's like to be a mother.

I was really struck by the competition aspect - because, really, how could anyone see it as winning? What have you "won" after all? Someone who wants to fuck you while his wife is looking after their kids? And, if you're really "lucky", someone who'll break up his marriage to be with you?

And usually they are not a porn addicted idiots and do not want to choke, spit and do anal on the first date.

This x100.

I totally agree with this. The issue is the men.

It's like the old days when women were treated dreadfully for getting pregnant when unmarried. Nothing was ever said about the men that impregnated them. The same double standards still apply. It's really depressing.

Yes, and there'd be ridiculous language like "getting herself pregnant", as if nobody else was involved.

What we often get is a quick bit of lip service about the man ("I do blame him too, the dick") and then paragraphs and paragraphs about the OW and how disgusting she is. But they're totally blaming him equally. Or threads like this, questioning the woman's morals with no mention of his, but yeah, totally blaming him equally.

And you shouldn't be blaming him equally anyway. You should be blaming him entirely. It was his promise. You both knew there were other women out there who'd sleep with him. That's the entire reason why you promised fidelity to each other rather than lobbying for a law to make it a crime for anyone to sleep with him. He made a promise, he broke it, blame him. Who cares why she did it, what do her sexual impulses matter? Why did he do it after swearing he wouldn't and being committed to your family?

Also seeing a lot of "you're asking the wrong question!" etc - a forum of women are unlikely to be able to give us the insight of a man's intention, if you're curious about that, ask men?

More often than not, men like this lie to the woman they are having an affair with - usually something along the lines of “my wife doesn’t care about me, she is horrible to me” or “I’m going to leave her soon” or “I have feelings for you now and want to be with you” and “we sleep in separate rooms and haven’t had sex for years” and “I love you and want to be with you for the rest of my life”.

Then when the wife catches her husband cheating cheating he blames the other woman and says “she comes on to me, she won’t leave me alone, she’s a psycho, she meant nothing to me”

MN is such a black and white space when affairs are mentioned. With comments following the same old trope.. moral vacuum , bottom feeders, once a cheat always a cheat... etc etc.

I simply don't agree.

I know multiple couples where the man has left his relationship when kids are small and gone in to marry OW and have more children and still remain happily in that marriage . Amongst my adult children's friends growing up - the VAST majority did not have a mum and dad married to each other by the time the kids were 11.. but the vast majority had a mother with or married to a second partner who had been in the children's lives far longer than the dad.

Sometimes women 'bounce' men in to parenthood.
Sometimes men are stupidly cavalier with their own fertility.
Sometimes both believe they are in love
and ready for family when they are immature and moving to fast
Sometimes men are just sexually greedy .

Sometimes they are simply with the wrong person and now meet the right one